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Grossman's War

Drama

Factual: History

Programmes around Russian writer and journalist Vasily Grossman's two epic wartime novels.

A season of programmes around Russian writer and journalist Vasily Grossman's two epic wartime novels, 'Stalingrad' and  'Life and Fate'.

Life and Fate: Building 6/1 - Those Who Were Still Alive

Grossman's War: Life and Fate: Building 6/1 - Those Who Were Still Alive

Life and Fate

Building 6/1 - Those Who Were Still Alive

BBC Radio 4 - Grossman's War, Life and Fate, Building 6/1 - Those Who Were Still Alive

David Tennant stars in Vasily Grossman's epic tale of family and war in Soviet Russia.

Commissar Krymov is sent to tackle dissent in the 'rat-war' frontline battle at the heart of Stalingrad. Starring David Tennant.

Late October 1942. Building 6/1 is a former apartment building in the centre of Stalingrad, being held by a rag-tag band of Russian soldiers against all the odds, in the teeth of the German advance.  

Soon the building, and its charismatic Commander, Captain Grekov, are a legend across Russia. But inside the building, Commissar Krymov has arrived to tackle what appears to be subversion, while the radio operator, Katya, falls in love with his nephew, Seryozha.

Kenneth Branagh and David Tennant star in Vasily Grossman’s epic saga.    

Captain Grekov  .....  Joseph Millson
Commissar Krymov  .....  David Tennant
Vasya  .....  Stephen Hogan
Katya  .....  Katie Angelou
Lyakhov  .....  Carl Prekopp
Polyakov  .....  Peter Polycarpou
Seryozha Shaposhnikov  .....  Freddie Fox
Batrakov  .....  James Lailey
Zubarev  .....  Gerard McDermott
Bunchuk  .....  Jonathan Forbes

Dramatised by Jonathan Myerson.

Director: Jonquil Panting

Producer: Alison Hindell

Set against the ferocious Battle of Stalingrad, this huge novel charts the fate of both a nation and a family in the turmoil of war and is increasingly hailed as the most important Russian novel of the 20th century. Its comparison of Stalinism with Nazism was considered by Soviet authorities to be so dangerous that the manuscript itself was arrested.  Grossman died in 1964, never knowing that his book would be smuggled to the West and eventually published in 1980.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2011.

Grossman's War: Life and Fate

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Vasily Grossman's sweeping historical tale set against the ferocious Battle of Stalingrad.

Set against the ferocious Battle of Stalingrad, Life and Fate is a sweeping historical tale that charts the fate of both a nation and a family in the turmoil of war.

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Grossman's War

Life and Fate

Building 6/1 - Those Who Were Still Alive

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